The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Here’s your chance to rant or rave. Were you a lucky one and able to get the badge you wanted? Were you locked out in a never loading room? Maybe a random person on Twitter helped you out. You can use this post to get whatever you want off your chest or to brag about what you were able to score.

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10 comments

Sweet JESUS I prepared for this day for months and knew all the ropes and read all the blogs. I did the correct thing and clicked at 9 on The. Dot. Got the white screen of doom. Never refreshed. Got in the waiting room. I was number 3686 and waited for about an hour until the badges I wanted we’re sold out. I noticed people with higher numbers in line (10k or 50k) got the badges they wanted and that’s when I got angry because my number in line was 3686!! Which is super low, right?? I guess not. I’ve never heard of SDCC registration being THIS bad. The EPIC waiting room is unfair completely. Your number in line does not matter at all. Better luck next year.

HORRIBLE system. I got in as #324 in the first minute of registration. Followed #SDCC instructions to not open any other windows or even breathe on my keyboard. After five minutes it refreshed ITSELF and told me I had refreshed my browser. Two minutes later the screen goes to white and stays that way for fifteen minutes then tells me the waiting room is full. Bring in ticketmaster if you have to, this system SUCKS. I was following the facebook feed and a lot of people who DID refresh like we were told not to did get in.

I got in at 9:15am at place #14,677. Not only did it tell me I had manually refreshed my browser (I hadn’t) but my wait room never auto-refreshed – people who were at least 10k spaces behind me got tickets before I did, and then badges were sold out. Last year was a pain in the neck, this year was an absolute nightmare; I’m pretty disappointed in the EPIC! team right now to be honest. But it’s okay, my best friend and I have already decided to bypass resales altogether and are taking the money we’d been saving up for SDCC to drive up to Yosemite instead. As much as I love SDCC I’d much rather spend $$$ on this than a bunch of action figures I don’t honestly need and a good ol’ case of Con Crud.

Same thing that happened to Jeffrey happened to me. I got in early but nothing happened. I was supposed to get tickets for a couple of friends, so they’re disappointed too. I got up early for this, only to be let down. Also, I was using Chrome and I think for some reason the page does not clash well with that browser. It happened to other people I know. Not only that, I think the way they do ticketing has gotten worse. It was much easier last year than this year and that was a fiasco. One of my good friends pointed this out: “I’m amazed that sdcc picks a system of ticket sales that mimics DOS attack on server. Then they wonder why there are problems.” Agreed.

I expected issues. I always expect issues. But this year seemed worse than last year somehow even though the system didn’t change at all this year. That bothers me.

I am more bothered by the customer service aspects of things though. The official Comic_Con twitter promised live up-to-date info but remained silent for the first 50 minutes of registration. The customer service phone number was constantly busy for a lot of people. Also why is the customer service number not toll-free? They haven’t said a word about any of the issues yet. Even a simple “We’re sorry for today’s issues” would have gone a long way.

Had 3 computers with 2 browsers each. Started clicking register 1 min before 12noon est. got in on Firefox on pc as #1261 and had 2 4 day w/preview night 15 min later. Other computers/ browsers sat and spun at registration page, ended up a white page but said waiting room at top and one went to the waiting room is full page.

My best experience buying badges was when they had the computer bank set up adjacent to the badge pick-up area on Preview Night under the sails. All they’d have to do is limit the number of badge purchases allowed along with some line management. Make that available every day for single day holders. Keep enough in reserve for open online sales with advance notice of firm dates of sale.